Chapter 4 - The Ill-Fated Pianist
It wasn’t just any woman,no, even a man would have frozen in this situation. The man, exuding a decadent, languid air, furrowed his brows once more and leaned his head in closer to Alperil.
Alperil couldn’t decide whether she ought to start by explaining her intrusion without the homeowner’s permission, or answer his strange question first.
A peculiar scent lingered in the air, a mix of strong rum and tobacco. Strangely, she didn’t dislike it. Just as Alperil’s lips parted under the oppressive shadow of Terenzio leaning so near
“Ugh.”
With a short groan, the man’s broad shoulders abruptly wavered. His unsteady figure, so out of keeping with his imposing presence, startled Alperil into instinctively supporting him. An inquiry, so fitting for a mere handmaid, slipped out of her lips without thought.
“…Ah.”
“Are you alright? Are you feeling unwell?”
A sharp headache seemed to rob the man of speech, his handsome face contorting into a grimace. Alperil furrowed her brows as well, noticing from this close distance the dark shadows etched beneath his eyes.
That wasn’t all. Despite being as large as the door itself, the man wasn’t as difficult to steady as she’d expected. The heavy sense of intimidation had been no more than an illusion crafted by his broad frame and natural build; the body now entrusted to her care was, to a pitiful degree, worn thin.
“Young master, let me help you to the bed. Then, I’ll fetch a physician…”
Thud.
Terenzio’s head drooped lifelessly. The body, half-slumped against the wall, lost the last of its strength and collapsed into her arms. Alperil was so startled, not even a scream escaped her throat.
She remained frozen for a moment before regaining her senses. Bringing her ear to his firm chest beneath the folds of his clothes, she heard it,thump, thump. A steady, rhythmic pulse. The sharp tang of strong liquor stung her nose.
“…Whew.”
A sigh of relief escaped as she realized this was nothing more than a bout of wretched drunkenness. A small hand reached up to rest against the man’s smooth forehead. His temperature was slightly high.
Her uncertain gaze drifted downward. Long, slender fingers extended gracefully, brushing at the edge of her vision. For a fleeting moment, she felt a strange urge to clasp that hand in hers, but Alperil firmly suppressed it and instead scanned the room.
It seemed the only thing left unscathed in this place was the piano. Finding no suitable spot to lay the fallen body, Alperil grabbed the man’s arms and began dragging him out.
It was a grave impertinence, but in such a situation, she felt sure anyone would have done the same.
She paused more than a few times in the middle of the corridor to catch her breath before finally finding a decent room and managing to lay him down on a bed. Though thick with dust, at least there weren’t any shards of glass scattered about.
It must have been a bed originally brought in for a petite maidservant,the man’s long legs couldn’t quite fit within the frame, awkwardly left to dangle above the floor. The sight stirred an oddly protective instinct in Alperil, and she wrinkled her nose.
Who was protecting whom now?
He was hardly a man in any position to receive sympathy. All the more so when the other party was a mere serf.
Having tended to her unconscious master’s injuries and laid him in a proper room, she supposed she’d left a decent enough first impression. Alperil resolved to worry no more about him and rose to her feet.
As she made for the door, her hand brushed the knob, and she recoiled at the coarse texture. Glancing down, she let out a long sigh at the sight of her palm, now dirtied a deep, inky black.
There would be much to do yet.
***
Tap, tap, tap.
Even to her own ears, it was a sound she hadn’t heard in a long while. In the vast storeroom of the mansion, among the frozen or sprouting vegetables, Alperil managed to find a few decent potatoes and set a pot of cloudy water atop the brazier.
The sun, once high in the sky, had long since disappeared. A crimson darkness now settled over Saint Calereum. The flickering bulbs, having long outlived their usefulness, would have been better off removed altogether.
Though she let out weary, helpless sighs, Alperil fetched cleaning tools from somewhere and set to wiping and sweeping anything within sight. After several hours, the once-filthy floor of the hall shone slick and bright.
At the age of eight, before she was lucky enough to catch the eye of the late Grand Duke and receive opera training, she had worked to survive. The knack for diligence was a habit ingrained in the body of a serf.
At first, it had been nothing short of appalling. But as she carefully looked into every corner, things she hadn’t noticed began to reveal themselves.
It wasn’t a mansion left entirely to decay. There were traces of someone else, relatively recently, having passed through,not Terenzio. The provisions were spoiled, yes, but not yet completely rotten.
Why had he left his life so neglected like this?
Alperil wondered as she peeled the potatoes and sliced them into bite-sized pieces. She herself would never have lasted a single day in such a bleak and filthy place.
The memory of the glittering Grand Duke’s residence, starkly contrasting with this one, surfaced in her mind.
‘There isn’t much you need to know. Just remember these two things.’
‘Alperil, that boy is very ill.’
‘He’s had a chronic condition since birth. It may not be immediately life-threatening, but… it’s a wretched thing all the same.’
Leopold had spoken those words with an almost sorrowful expression.
The man spoke in a peculiar manner, like someone twenty years older than his actual age.
Though that warm tone had, by then, become oddly familiar to her, it grated on her nerves again that night.
‘They say when the body suffers, the mind grows sharp as well. Theo cut off every form of support he received from the ducal house the moment he came of age. I haven’t heard word of him in years.’
It was something she’d never heard, not even in rumor. Separate from Terenzio Heron’s infamous conduct and the numerous incidents surrounding him, little was known about the man’s private affairs.
A man who’d never once turned down an invitation sent to him had, three years ago, vanished from all official appearances for reasons unknown. The occasional publication of a few new compositions was the only proof of his continued existence.
Many speculations and rumors had spread, but at the time, Alperil hadn’t found any of it worth her attention. This was the first time she was hearing any detailed account of the matter.
Unwittingly made privy to the brothers’ secret, Alperil’s lips trembled as they parted. It wasn’t as though there weren’t countless others lying in wait, night and day, hoping to sink their teeth into any shred of weakness.
‘Are you sure you should be telling someone like me…?’
‘It’s precisely because you’re someone like you that I’m telling you. What could you possibly do about it?’
Leopold had laughed with arrogant ease. The man, who had always flaunted an oppressive presence before her, abruptly crossed the room to rummage through a neglected-looking box in the corner.
‘It should be around here… Ah, yes. Here it is.’
A small, transparent glass bottle was pinched between his fingers. Its clear liquid shimmered faintly, so pristine that it might be mistaken for an empty vessel at first glance.
“Either way, I’m weary of continuing on like this, It’s disgraceful, isn’t it, to be the eldest and yet live without even knowing the state of an ailing younger brother. Since I can’t go to him myself, I thought to entrust someone reliable with him.”
He spoke on, his eyes never leaving the bottle.
“And as luck would have it, you know the piano. I thought music might open a conversation between the two of you. Musicians understand one another, don’t they?”
“Then… you mean for me to,”
“Yes. I want you to stay by Theo’s side for a year. If the isolation of the countryside is stifling, I’ll have a carriage sent for you a few times. Should you wish, you can ride it back to perform at the opera.”
Then, he pressed the glass bottle into Alperil’s hand.
“This is a medicine I procured recently from Litnia for him. I’d like you to be especially mindful about it.”
“A drop in every meal. But make sure Theo doesn’t notice. The boy,charming as he is,has always hated taking medicine.” Leopold smirked faintly as he muttered the words. There was something strangely discordant in his voice, which sounded so sincere in its concern for his brother.
“Is… is it truly medicine?”
The question escaped her lips, impulsive, and she regretted it the instant it passed.
“What did you say?”
“…”
“The… the color of it is so clear. It’s beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a medicine that looked like this.”
Alperil lowered her gaze and tried to gather the question back into her throat along with the now-chilled air of the room.
Leopold regarded her with an intrigued expression for a moment before, as though it were nothing, he struck directly at the core of her unspoken thoughts.
“Alperil, do you take me for the sort of man who would send foreign poison to my sickly half-brother?”
Alperil brought her hand to her mouth to stifle a hiccup threatening to burst out.
Dismissing her suspicion without a trace of concern, Leopold smiled quietly, as if to scoff at the idea.
“…My lord, I,”
“Like every eldest son in the world, I love my brother. He’s my blood, a child of the Heron line.”
Something about it was unsettling.
Perhaps she was being too sensitive, but fear was still fear. A man infamous for his violent temper, and one suffering from an incurable illness? It was surely a burden far beyond what she could bear.
And yet, Alperil knew she had no room to object.
Musicians, he said,as though such a notion weren’t laughable. The son of the Heron family and a serf bound to him. A genius instrumentalist and a peasant singer…
Her wandering thoughts were jolted back to the present as the pot boiled over.
Alperil hurried to lift the lid from the crimson soup pot and stirred it. Even with the most meager ingredients, the dish had taken on a surprisingly presentable appearance.
And looking at him now, one could hardly deny he wore the face of a sick man.
Really,what would the young lord have to gain from such deceit? Whatever anyone might say, he was still the rightful heir of House Heron and the vacant seat of Grand Duke was his. Not even the king could alter that fact.
Alperil consoled herself with such thoughts as she took out the small glass bottle she had carefully kept tucked in her clothes.
The liquid inside had no color, no scent.
She let a single drop fall into the soup laid out on a shallow dish. The silverware, often used to detect poisons, showed no reaction.
Only then did she allow herself to quell the lingering unease and recapped the bottle. She placed the hot soup bowl onto a tray she’d found somewhere and made her way up the staircase of Saint Calereum Manor, which had regained a hint of its old grandeur.
“If someone’s ill, all the more reason they ought to eat three proper meals a day.”
His strikingly beautiful features could not mask the sunken hollows in his cheeks. The man who stumbled and collapsed again and again.
Even though barely half a day had passed, the unfamiliar memory still clung to her mind.
Alperil walked down the corridor to the door of the room where he lay and knocked.
When no reply came, she considered leaving the tray at the door,but waited.
Not knowing what consequence that moment of hesitation would bring.
A few seconds passed.
Suddenly, the door swung open, and her vision spun.
Before she could even cry out, a hand seized her wrist, still holding the plate, and a firm arm gripped her slender waist.
The evening was deep; not a single candle lit the room. The slanted light that had leaked in from the hallway disappeared as the man leaned against the door.
A cold object pressed against her cheek.
“Since when… no, rather,”
A low voice, thick with fatigue, settled by her ear. It didn’t take long for her to realize the cold touch against her skin was a pistol.
“Who sent you?”
A metallic click.
With rough, unrestrained motion, the cocked barrel was shoved up beneath Alperil’s chin.
